Christmas Words 16: Gifts

“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh” (Matthew 2:10-11). Christmas, the original one, had gifts.

Some are torn about giving gifts at Christmas because they protest consumerism.
Some are torn about giving gifts because they are unemployed.
Some are torn about giving gifts at Christmas because so many are poor.

But giving gifts transcends a Dickens kind of Christmas. Giving gifts, regardless of whether or not we can offer the royal gifts of gold and incense and myrrh, are natural to Christmas because God “gave” his Son to us at Christmas. Christmas is gift and our gifts mirror God’s gifts to us.

Perhaps we should see all of our gifts as “regifting.”

We give worship to God at Christmas as regifting what God has given to us.
We give gifts to others as regifting what God has given to us.

We regift to God, not because we are cheap but because all we have to offer to God is what he has given to us: our possessions, our money, our lives, our very selves. Even our worship is participation in the perichoretic worship of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

I don’t mean to sound cute with this idea that Christmas is about gifts and regifting. I mean only to say that all we have has been given to us and at Christmas all genuine gifts are participations in what God has given to us. We pass it on.